Chapter twelve
We ran. Down and down the hill over rocks and between the gnarled pines. The thundering pounding of the wargs leaping behind us came closer and closer. Snarls filled the air. Something grey flashed at the edge of my vision before I ducked not a moment too soon and parried a set of snapping teeth away. I bounded right over me and spun around ready to block my path, but Bilbo almost ran into it. The hobbit backed up quickly, but the warg had lost interest in me and made a rush at the poor hobbit who drew his sword and held it before him and closed his eyes. I plucked an arrow from the quiver on my back, but suddenly remembered with horror that my bowstring was broken. In that moment, the warg leapt and it slammed itself right into Bilbo's sword and it fell dead with the little needle stuck between its eyes. I sighed in relief and sprinted on. Thorin and Dwalin slew another and Ori ran screaming from a warg and swung his pick axe backwards over his head wildly, surprisingly hitting the warg in the head and knocking it out cold. The trees were thinning up ahead. It was a cliff. I cried out in hopelessness.
"Up into the trees! All of you!" Gandalf called to us.
I automatically crouched down and Balin ran towards me and I hoisted him up by his foot up towards a branch. Once he was up, I gave a hand to Ori and Oin before I swung myself up onto a branch.
We were all up. Wait, no! The hobbit was still on the ground, looking wildly around.
"Up here, you idiot!" I screamed down at him.
He looked up with a start and leapt up, over shooting Gloin who had reached down to grab his hand. Instead of grabbing Gloin's outstretched hand, his fingers tangled in the dwarf's beard and he swung himself up much to Gloin's pain and mortification. A warg snapped at Bilbo's behind as his legs hooked onto another branch, but he and Gloin were soon safely up higher in the tree. The pack of wargs circled round and round the trees. Something strangely white was approaching. A pale orc upon a white warg.
He spoke something to us. I had never particularly mastered the language of orcs. It was a mix of Black Speech and perhaps some botched words from Westron and Khuzdul, so I picked out something along the lines of.
"Do you smell it? Can you smell the fear? Your father reeked of it –Thorin, son of Thrain!"
"It cannot be," Thorin's voice was ragged.
"That one is mine –kill the rest!"
And the wargs leapt at us. I snatched my foot higher as I felt something graze the bottom of my foot. Though the wargs could not climb, they could jump magnificent heights and they snapped off branches with their jaws and their weight shook the trees to the point where I had to wrap my legs around other branches and hook myself unto the tree.
"Drink their blood!"
Azog was neither original nor subtle. At that moment I heard a sound of cracking and the tree swayed dangerously and began to tip. The shallow roots on the pines that could not dig deep into the hard rock they grew on were no match for the weight of the wargs. We all swung towards the tree behind us. Branches slashed at my face as I grabbed onto what hopefully was the next tree. But we were tipping again and a mad scramble of a moment, I had to swing wildly for the next branch and clamour over the next before all but the tree at the very edge of the cliff was the last one standing with thirteen dwarves, a hobbit, Gandalf and I hanging on for our dear lives.
A flaming pinecone flew and rolled into the midst of the wargs. They skittered back with howls. I looked up. Gandalf dropped one down towards me and I caught it bouncing my hands.
"Fili –light one!" The pinecone was starting to crumble.
He lit on and blew on it with short puffs and took to lighting another as I threw mine down. It hit a warg square in the face. I bellowed in triumph as it barked and turned tail. Soon, there were pinecones of fire raining down and some wargs were on fire and the rest backed off. The fallen trees were burning and our tree was soon circled by a ring of fire. We cheered and hollered and shook our fists.
The tree tilted back.
We were falling. Our tree lurched over the abyss. I scrambled for a handhold. It jerked down until we were nearly horizontal to the ground and hanging over the drop off the mountain. Someone yelled and I felt a sudden weight on my leg that nearly ripped my boot off.
"Fili!"
I struggled to hang on to my branch as Fili gripped desperately at my leg with one hand as he swung freely over the expanse of night below him. I let go of a roar of pain as I tried hoisting myself up. Fili was too heavy. Everyone else hung off the branches like flapping laundry so no one was in a position to help anyone else. But someone had stood up. I looked up. It was Thorin. I opened my mouth to call him, but Fili suddenly was able to swing his other arm up onto my leg and I nearly slipped off my branch. I swallowed my cry with a cough as I finally steadied myself again. When I looked up, Thorin was not there anymore.
He was sprinting towards Azog.
Even from such distance, I could see the muscles coiled in the white warg. It leapt. It flew over Thorin and landed heavily.
Thorin fell.
I nearly bit through my tongue as Thorin got back on his feet but was thrown aside by Azog's mace. Thorin's head snapped back and he tumbled down on his back.
"Thorin!" a guttural cry tore from my throat.
The white warg closed its jaws around Thorin and bit down as it swung him like a ragged doll. I could hear the sounds of the dwarves struggling to climb up from the branches, but there were sudden cracks and snaps and the tree trembled. Thorin sliced the warg in the face and he was flung violently and landed on a stony ledge, unmoving.
"Bring me the dwarf's head,"
Tears ran down my face in desperation. "Fili!" I looked down at him. "I am going to swing you towards the branch over there."
"Are you mad?"
"Trust me!" and with a mighty swing, I kicked him off towards a branch further down to my left but closer to the cliff. My heart leapt to my throat as he flailed in the air, but he landed on the branch and the tree held still. Scrabbling frantically, I watched as the orc with the sword came closer and closer to Thorin. The orc placed its blade on Thorin's neck to mark his swing.
"NO!" I sprinted forward but he was still so far away.
A sudden blur shot into the side of the orc and knocked it right over. Someone rolled over on the orc and stabbed in the gut. It was the hobbit. It was Bilbo.
"Kill him," Azog smiled.
But I screamed a war cry and pounced forward with some of the dwarves bursting from behind me. My blade dug deep into the neck of a black warg as I used it as lever to swing myself up onto the saddle in front of the astonished orc. He recovered and landed a blow that hit me full in the face. Spitting blood, I yanked at my sword, but it was still stuck in the dying warg's neck. The orc laughed and stabbed its sword towards me. Blocking his arm, the blade tickled my skin. I shook with effort to keep him from slitting my neck but I could feel the blade slowly cut into my skin. I suddenly let his arm go and threw myself back and his blade flashed before my face and I kicked him in the arm and sent the blade flying. Reaching up to his eyes, my fingers found their marks and I flung us off the warg and landed on top of him on the ground and stabbed his own blade deep into his chest. I put my foot on the warg's face and yanked my sword out.
I looked up wildly for Thorin; he still lay on the rock. But I could see a blue flash of light swinging about before him. It was Bilbo, still defending him from Azog. The hobbit was on the ground on his back and the orc and warg sauntered towards him slowly. A burning log lay in my way. I held my breath and leapt through. A buffet of wind knocked me over. I looked up. A huge shadow swept over a warg. It was an eagle. A giant Misty Mountain eagle scooped a warg in its claws and deposited it over the edge of the cliff. Another knocked over a flaming tree onto an orc rider. Another fanned the flames high into screaming wargs and another picked off three of them and sent them writhing and howling into the air.
They began lifting the company up, one by one and dropping them onto the backs of other eagles waiting in the air. I landed with a thump in the great soft expanse of an eagle.
"Thank you," I whispered, and buried my face into its feathers.
We all took off into the sky. Thorin was gently clutched in a pair of talons. I peered off into the darkness, but he was up head and I could not tell whether he was moving or breathing.
"Stop pinching," the eagle who carried me commented.
I released my knees and my fingers. "Sorry,"
.
.
.
The eagles took us high up into their home: the Eyrie. They deposited us on a wide shelf of rock and either flew off to their respective nests. They gave us our space.
Thorin's eyes were still closed. I knelt down beside him shakily. Gandalf nearly knocked me over as he rushed over and placed his hand over the dwarf's bloodied face.
There was a deep sigh from within Thorin and he opened his eyes slowly. I felt the weak brush of fingers on my hand. I clutched them and he winced.
"The Halfling," he whispered.
"It's alright –Bilbo is here," I smiled at him.
He started to get up.
"Don't –," I started.
He struggled anyway; Dwalin and I helped him up. He shook us off and nearly fell to his knees.
"You!" he was looking at Bilbo. "What were you doing? You nearly go yourself killed!"
I bit my lip. Didn't Thorin know that the hobbit had saved his life?
"Did I not say that you would be a burden?" Thorin continued. Bilbo's face fell and he looked so lost. "That you would not survive in the wild, that you had no place amongst us,"
The hobbit stood silently, trying to hide his hurt. Thorin limped towards him breathing heavily.
"Never have I been so wrong in my life," and he took the hobbit into his arms.
I cheered along with the dwarves and wiped happily at my eyes.
"I am sorry I doubted you," Thorin finally pulled back.
"No, I would have doubted me too," Bilbo shrugged. "I'm not a hero, or a warrior," he gave Gandalf a look, "or a burglar,"
We all chuckled.
And with that, Thorin collapsed.
.
.
.
Gandalf soon was in deep conversation with the Lord of the Eagles. Apparently, he had once saved the eagle from an arrow wound and the eagles were in his debt. Other eagles arrived with dry boughs for fuel and soon a great warm fire was going. Gandalf told the Lord of the Eagles stories of our travels and asked if they would take us east.
But the Lord of the Eagles would not take us near where men lived. "They would shoot at us with their great bows of yew, for they would think we were after their sheep. And at other times, they would be right! No! We are glad to cheat the goblins of their sport, and glad to repay our thanks to you, but we will not risk ourselves for dwarves in the southward plains."
Gandalf nodded. "Very well, take us where and as far as you will! We are deeply obliged to you. But in the meantime, we are famished with hunger."
"That can perhaps be mended," the Lord of Eagles said with a hint of a smile in his voice.
Bilbo sat down with a thump next to me as I worked with Oin to strip the unconscious Thorin down to his britches.
"Now I know what a piece of bacon feels like when it is suddenly picked out of the pan by a fork and put back on the shelf." He said.
"No you don't." I replied. "A piece of bacon knows it will get back in the pan sooner or later and hopefully, we won't!" I slipped Thorin's brigandine shirt off.
"Besides," Oin continued, "the eagles aren't forks!"
I hissed as I peeled back Thorin's bloody, deep blue shirt to reveal where the warg had bit into him. Inspecting the wounds closely, I sighed with relief as no bones were crushed and no lungs punctured. Dwarves were really the hardiest of all of the beings in Middle Earth.
"Here," I got Oin to help me pull the shirt over Thorin's head as gently as we could. "Go tend to the others –make sure their wounds are cleaned before the eagles come back with the food. There is no way you will be able to make them stay still after that." Oin protested but I was resolute, "Go –I can handle this on my own well enough."
He grunted but gathered the dwarves around and got them removing their armour. I turned back to Thorin. His eyelashes threw delicate, dancing shadows over the cuts on his face as the fire burned brightly near us. Shouting at someone to bring me some of the boiling water and the boiling wine, I washed my hands the best I could and thanked Iluvatar that Thorin was not awake and began to pour a little of the wine onto his chest. I stopped. He still did not move. I continued slowly and carefully until I was satisfied that his wounds would not fester. Digging into the pouch that hung from my belt, I produced needle and thread and some healing salve I had learned to make from the elves. The rest was less stressful since Thorin's reflexes and flinches were not there. Healing was a calming sort of work and I hummed softly as I wrapped bandages around his chest and his arms. I rolled him onto his bedroll. After washing the blood from my hands, I sat back on my haunches, so exhausted I could barely bring myself to head off into the relieve myself near the edge of the cliff.
The fragrant smell of roasting meat filled my head as I headed back towards the fire. Tired but hungry, the dwarves had been able to cook the sheep, the rabbits, and the hares the eagles had brought up. I tore into a whole hare and didn't stop until there were only bones left. I wiped the grease off my face slowly, my eyes drooping. There were still two hares left on the spit.
"Those are Thorin's," I smacked Bombur's hand. He burped sadly.
The fire was allowed to die down a little so the hares were not in danger of burning and I settled myself beside Thorin. Covering him with his coat, I rested my chin on my knees and gazed off into the fire.
.
.
Thorin's sudden groan woke me with a start. I rubbed my eyes blearily.
"Tallis," he gasp was hoarse as he tried to sit up, but grimaced and had to lie back down.
"Sh," I put a hand on his back and helped to sit up against the rock wall behind us. "I've sewed you up,"
His fingers brushed across the bandages spanning his chest experimentally. I passed him a bowl of water and rose to my feet with a painful stretch and stumbled over to the fire to get the hares. They were still warm. I handed the first one still speared by a spit to Thorin and he tore into it. Passing him the second one after he finished the first, he barely paused to take a breath. When he was done, he reached for the wineskin, but I batted it away and handed him more water. There was no need for him to bleed more or slow down his healing process with the stuff. He grunted, but I grunted resolutely back at him and he took to his water with a sigh.
"You are a messy eater," I picked up the spits and the bones and threw them into the fire.
"I think you'd know something about that having lived with us dwarves for so long. I am afraid that it has rubbed off you –half of what you ate is still on your face."
I laughed and his eyes sparkled back at me as he tried wiping at my nose, but only succeeded in leaving a greasy smear down my cheek.
"Thank you," I wrinkled my nose dryly.
"You care so much when you heal."
"If a healer doesn't care, there is little healing they can do,"
"They still love you for that," his voice was so deep and rugged, but so gentle. "You saved them,"
"Not all of them." It still hurt to remember. An epidemic had swept through Ered Luin and since I was human, the sickness had not affected me. Feverish, sweating, and coughing blood, the victims wasted away slowly until they were nothing more than bones. It was a month of nearly no sleep and nursing everyone around me. The ones who got better could help. But some did not get better.
"There was nothing more you could have done,"
"I know," I truly did. But it still danced cruelly over my mind sometimes. "Do they still hate me?"
"No –they had needed time to grieve and come to terms with the deaths of their children and their elderly. They thought they had driven you away,"
They few families who lost people had reacted with such grief I had never seen in anywhere else before. The dwarves lived and died and grieved hard. Their grief tore them like how earthquakes rend mountains. Thorin had risen from his bed whenever I knew someone was close to death and he always came to see the little ones or the old ones. A mother had come at me, her eyes so dark and so tormented and had drew her nails across my face and pulled her kitchen knife from her apron. Thorin had stepped between us, sweating with the effort of standing for so long since he was still sick. He had grabbed her wrist, made her drop the knife, pulled her into his arms, and stood there shaking until she had stopped wailing and beating him with her fists. I had to nearly carry Thorin back to his bed.
"I think they miss you,"
"The odd human woman," I snorted.
"My odd human woman," he whispered seriously, but with a twinkle in his blue eyes.
"Am I yours now?" I raised my brows at him.
"I don't think you have ever been,"
How little he knew.